Lev Parnas is apparently going to appear on Maddow tonight. So we’ll hear a bit more about him and how he’s presenting himself. Maybe he’ll break substantive new news. One fascinating question though is just what his angle is in all this.

You’re probably saying, “well to stay out of jail obviously!” And yes, 100%. He’s definitely trying to save himself. But just how isn’t completely clear, at least not to me. Let’s walk through this.

I’m trying to get a handle on this question myself. But the big question from last night’s Parnas documents is just what the story is with Robert Hyde, landscaper, absolute biggest Donald Trump fan ever and longshot candidate for Congress who had already been disowned by much of the Connecticut GOP back in December. Was he really involved with surveilling and perhaps considering harming the US Ambassador to Ukraine or is he all talk or perhaps literally crazy? Here’s Josh Kovensky’s write up of what we know so far.

It seems like a stretch to think Hyde’s claims were totally made up. But a month or so after the text exchanges in question Hyde was taken into custody at Trump’s Doral resort in Florida and apparently involuntarily committed for roughly a week to a psychiatric facility after telling police he feared someone was trying to assassinate him.

Happy Wednesday, January 15. At 10 a.m. ET House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will announce who she’s chosen as impeachment managers, just ahead of a House vote this afternoon to send the articles to the Senate. Here’s more on that and other stories we’re following.

Let me share some very preliminary thoughts on the documents and text messages released by the House Intelligence committee from Lev Parnas.

I stress preliminary. I’ve gone through them once. In Josh Kovensky‘s and Matt Shuham’s write up they caught a number of references, the import of which wasn’t clear to me until I understood the full context.

One of the truisms of the last three years — most often spoken by Democrats — is that everyone has an interest in preventing future Russian interventions in U.S. elections because next time it could be Republicans who are the target rather than Democrats. Alas, this was false, is false and for the foreseeable future will continue to be false.

We should know this, and if you didn’t know it yesterday’s news that Russian intelligence operatives have been hacking into servers in Ukraine as part of President Trump’s impeachment defense should clarify the matter. Josh Kovensky has more details here. But the gist is that in early November, just as the impeachment effort began to build steam, GRU operatives began hacking into various subsidiaries of Burisma Holdings, apparently looking for emails or other documents that could embarrass the Bidens or otherwise assist President Trump’s impeachment defense.

Did we learn anything from 2016?

From the reactions to a report that Russian government-affiliated hackers targeted a Ukrainian gas company at the center of conspiracy theories around Vice President Joe Biden, apparently not.

Happy Tuesday, January 14. In the last two days, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) took some shots at her longtime Senate ally Bernie Sanders (I-VT), accusing the Vermont senator of directing his volunteers to “trash” her and confirming he once told her a woman could not win the Democratic nomination. The Sanders campaign has vehemently denied the allegations. Is this a sign of a broader rift between the two comrades or just the ebb and flow of a Democratic primary? Here’s more on that and other stories we’re following:

We’re likely to see the House appoint impeachment managers and hand off the articles of impeachment to the Senate this week. Tierney Sneed and Kate Riga took Inside members’ questions on what they’re watching, and what to expect as a Senate trial begins.

Watch here.

Happy Monday, January 13. NBC News reported Monday morning that President Trump had been plotting the assassination of Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani for at least six months prior to the attack, a development that puts renewed scrutiny on the administration’s “imminent” threat rationale for the strike. Here’s more on that and other stories we’re following.